Head In The Dirt – the name says it all. If one person was to hold the world record for being the grimiest, most scuzzed up, uncompromising blues maverick of the moment it’s San Francisco’s Hanni El Khatib. What he doesn’t know about the blues isn’t worth knowing – and when you enlist rawest producer on the block The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach to ‘polish things up a bit’, you know you’re in for a filthy ride.
Since the release of his debut album Will The Guns Come Out everyone has been slapping Khatib on the back. Fast becoming a music supervisor favourite soundtracking practically everything from CSI:NY to Nike’s worldwide “Just Do It” campaign and earning a rock-solid reputation for his visceral live shows sharing bills with Florence and the Machine, Rick Ross, Death From Above 1979, and The Growlers, it was only a matter of time before Khatib and Auerbach’s paths would cross.
The result is blistering new album Head In The Dirt. From ‘Save Me’s cut-to-the-bone R&B to the overcranked Stooges-style stomper ‘Family’- its equal parts blues, garage rock, soul, folk and doo-wop.
When Khatib stepped out, he was merely the first-generation American son of Palestinian and Filipino immigrants – a man having grown up in California, raised on a molotov cocktail of skateboarding, punk rock, and 1950s/60s classic Americana. Now Khatib is shaping the sound of modern nostalgia: gritty, contemporary rock‘n’roll with a rollicking punk edge that glares ahead of its time whilst nodding over its shoulder at the past. Songs that bruise the skin in the present and bleed into the soul like an ink-stain on the future.
